Drama enacted December 26, 2004
Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Glen Arm, Maryland USA

Characters: N - Narrator
H - Holly, a teenager
G - her Grandfather (add a bit more belly with a pillow)

Stage: the chancel area between lectern and pulpit.
Props: 2 folding chairs and a tray table

Notes: actors each have a chair and creatively move it between one of three pre-determined spots - one of which represents a living room, one a side-by-side front seat of a car, and one a face-to-face with table between donut shop stall. The three locations can, in fact, be the same, but best if they are not. Never sit with back to congregation.

N - Christmas is a wonderful time of year, full of opened presents, delicious meals, and family gathered together to celebrate. Perhaps your heart and belly are overflowing with such good cheer in the afterglow of this holiday now past. Of course, not all Christmases are merry and bright. We have only to look to the Christmas story itself, as told by Matthew, to realize things don’t always happen in the way you think they should.
The first Christmas was a rough one for many families in Bethlehem that year. And the family of the One whose birth we have just celebrated found themselves on the road - not exactly a best case scenario for beginning a life. Even so, life goes on. Christmas is still Christmas. Those who have experienced loss, or gone through hard times as the year comes to a close, they know of what I speak. Hope, peace, joy, love (remember those Advent candles we lit?), how do we find our way to these as we stumble our way through difficult times?
This morning we catch a glimpse of one family (or should I say, two persons within that family) trying to find their way through a very different Christmas ... and beyond.

(Holly enters and sits - as described below - in a chair
to the side of the stage. Once H. is in place, continue)

N - She sat in Grandma’s easy chair, hugging her knees to her chest on the day after Christmas. Rays of sunlight spread over the floor in front of her, but she was lost in dark thoughts. "I don’t want to be here," an inner voice repeated over and over. "It’s important that we spend time with Grandma and Grandpa," Mom had said earlier that day. "They need us, Holly."

(Grandpa enters and stands off to the side,
observing H who is oblivious to his presence.
Gradually G makes his way over to her, unseen)

N - "I know they need us," the inner voice spoke, "I just don’t want to be here." The truth was: she really loved her grandparents. If Grandma were better, she’d rather be with her than anywhere else. Ever since Grandma started not being herself, however, Holly started not wanting to visit. It was tough seeing someone you loved who didn’t even remember who you were. Early on, it was okay, for Grandma’s forgetfulness was covered by her cheerful nature. "Of course, you’re my granddaughter," she’d say when reminded, "you’re such a pretty girl." Nowadays, though, Grandma was lost in some foreign world. She didn’t even look at you, just stared at the ceiling. "I don’t want to be here," Holly’s inner voice said.

G - "Not much fun here, is it? (she nods) Let’s say you and I go for a doughnut and some hot chocolate. I need to get out of this house. How about you?"

H - "Grandpa, how do you do it? I get depressed just thinking about Grandma. But, then, I can do something else: go to school, be with my friends. I can stop thinking about her. You’re with her all the time, though. Doesn’t it get you down?"

G - "Sure it does, Holly. I do try to get away when I can. I have friends, also, though not as many as I used to. A problem with growing old is that your friends start dying on you. I still have some, even some younger, newer ones who come over and take care of Grandma so I can get away. But, you’re right, it does get me down, too."

H - "How do you handle it, Grandpa? It seems so hopeless. Grandma is not going to get any better, that’s what Dad said. He said she’s sort of fading away before our eyes. I want the old Grandma back, the one who baked the best Christmas cookies ever, who buried your face in her breast in a big hug. I miss her so much."

G - "I do, too, Holly. More than you can imagine. I miss her tender words, as well as her angry ones. She could cut me with comments sharper than any knife. Crazy that I’d long for her quick temper, isn’t it? You remind me of her."

H - "Grandpa, what is there to look forward to? She’ll only get worse. Does she even hear us anymore? Last Christmas she at least had a smile on her face when we opened presents. She was like a little kid. I feel guilty for saying so, but I didn’t want to spend Christmas with her this year. She’s like a stranger. I feel so uncomfortable around her."

G - "It’s okay to feel that way. I do sometimes, myself. I try hard to remember your grandmother the way she was, which is easier for me than you. I’ve known her for longer than you. There are moments when I see a glimmer of her old self, but those moments come less and less. I don’t really know this woman anymore. I’m not giving up, though. I have hope."

G - "I know. My hope isn’t based on her getting better, at least not in this life. You’re only now coming to understand that life is more than what you’re going through right now. At my age, I’m very aware that I won’t be around for all that much longer. Your Grandmother will die one day, and so will I." (pause as H quietly reacts, perhaps a tear or a sniffle) "I have to look ahead I look at you and see Grandma as a teenager. Life goes on. Some of my hope rests in you. I’m excited about the person you are becoming. In a way, Grandma lives on in you. Don’t think too hard about that, however. It’s not a weight you have to carry around, though some people see it as a burden. You are her and my legacy, one way in which we touch the future, long after we have passed away. No disease can wipe that away, at least I hope not. Alzheimers may have felled the tree that your grandmother was, but from her stump comes a new shoot: you."

G - "Sure, and Santa is really a skinny guy. You need glasses more than I do." (They laugh)

G - "You’re a pretty sharp young woman. I did indeed. Can you figure where I would go on from there?"

H - "Well, yeah, something about God and what Dad calls ‘the great by and by, pie in the sky.’ I don’t think he thinks too much of it."

G - "I think you’re right, However, Grandma’s illness has shaken some of what he used to understand. Once upon a time, your father and I could get into a pretty good argument. He couldn’t accept much of what we taught him growing up. He was an angry young man. Protested the war in Vietnam, burned his draft card, got arrested."

H - "Are we talking about the same man? I can’t imagine Dad doing stuff like that. He’s so ... quiet and conservative."

G - "Well, believe it, Holly. You have seen pictures of his long hair, haven’t you?"

G - "Those would have been fighting words at one time, young lady. Still, we loved him, and he loved us. Actually, he and I weren’t that far apart. I didn’t go off to war when I was a young man, either. I believed that Jesus had a better way. Still do. In spite of all the terrible things that have happened during my life, I have hope that God’s Way will prevail. My refusal to fight was based in this hope. I think your Dad’s was based in anger."

H - "I don’t understand this ‘hope,’ Grandpa. When I think about Grandma, I just get angry. Maybe I’m angry with God for allowing her to get like this."

G - "I get angry, too. Only, anger isn’t the last word. Anger only gets me so far, then it loses steam. Hope, on the other hand, is a long-term power. The Bible says it is something the Holy Spirit plants in us, like a tree that grows and grows, one that is there for more than a season. I believe that your Grandmother is in God’s hands - all that she ever was, is now, or will be. God will not let her go, even when death comes. Call it a ‘sweet by and by.’ I believe in God’s tomorrow. Something new is coming. God is making it happen. You are a part of God’s future, but there is so much more than you or I can see. God is at work at something much bigger and better. Maybe Grandma can see it. Perhaps that’s where she’s looking when we think her mind is gone. Maybe she already has one foot in heaven. She just can’t tell us."

H - "I’d like to believe that, Grandpa. Is that what hope is: imagining another possibility when things look pretty bad?"

G - "You have wisdom beyond your years, Holly. Again, you remind me so much of your Grandmother. Listen, we’d better head back home before your folks start imagining something bad happening to us."

H - "Christmas with Grandma the way she is still makes me sad, even imagining Grandma in a better place."

G - "Me, too. If it helps, though, remember that this holiday has often been celebrated in desperate times and places. Christmas is the story about how, when things were pretty rough in this world, God was at work on a new possibility. He gave his very own to the world, Jesus, in the form of an infant. You know the story."

G - "When you think about it, honey, your grandmother is a bit like a little child right now. Can’t do much. Depends on us to take care of her. She even wears a diaper."

G - "Well, it’s true. Sometimes that’s how I see her - as a little baby I need to love and care for, just like she took care of your Dad long time ago."

G - "A different sort of nativity scene. I don’t think we could fit her in a cradle."

G - "Here we are, home again." (G pretends to pull in driveway and put transmission in park) "Better go in and see how everyone is doing. Your Mom is cookin’ up a good meal for us, I’m sure, and could probably use some help, don’t ya think?"

©2004 Peter L. Haynes, adapted from a short story by the author.
(you are welcome to borrow and, where / as appropriate, note the source - myself or those from whom I have knowingly borrowed.)